Author Archive for Laurie

Fight series—entry #2. Ushering in a new day.

Published by Laurie on March 31, 2010 in Leadership. 0 Comments

I’m a huge American Idol fan. I love watching how potential is coaxed to life. I was so stimulated by last night’s surprise value lessons I lost sleep. Usher was the Idol mentor for this week’s R&B-inspired show. He did a phenomenal job of coaching the idol “10” to take the stage. He seemed to nail the issues that are barriers to winning for each of the contestants and directly call them to action to overcome them. He was immensely likeable. But the thing that captivated me was how outside of himself he was in his approach. Usher was completely focused on each contestant, completely in the moment with them. His personal confidence and sense of identity are apparently so strong that he is able to actively press himself into building up others. The contestants were his agenda, not the camera or upholding his image and reputation before millions of viewers or winning more raving fans to himself.

The second value lesson came from Simon Cowell, who spoke directly to Lee Dewyze, a contestant with huge potential for commercial success who gave a banner performance. This young man apparently struggles with small confidence. Cowell called it (the confidence issue) out again, spoke to his difficulty making eye contact, suggested his lack of self assurance is perhaps due to something that happened in his past, and then affirmed him. He said Lee Dewyze would realize in watching back the tape that his world had just changed. Like Usher, he was an agent unafraid to challenge the barriers to potential and give a reason for hope (success).

So here’s the value lesson: those of us in positions of leadership have an opportunity to unleash the best in those around us. But we can’t do that effectively if we can’t get past or outside ourselves. How’s your confidence factor? Are you doing the right things to quell your own insecurities or bring down personal barriers so you can actively press yourself into the lives around you? Are you an Usher who’s over instead of all about yourself? Are you bold enough to mentor a friend, family member or client, calling out the barriers to potential and authentically investing in and cheering success? Are you ushering talent?

Value Lesson

Published by Laurie on January 22, 2010 in Design and Leadership. 0 Comments

I’ve thought a lot over the past 24 hours about what drives an agency and the people who work within its walls. We were asked to spend two hours with a group of students from Northeast Magnet High School in Wichita. Jeffrey asked Scott Light and Jo Tomson, art directors here, to prepare for and direct how those two hours would be spent.

From the inception of The Strategy Group, we have said we would be teachable. We would display a servant’s heart toward our clients. We would go above and beyond through work ethic and creative stretch to move the needle for them. We would give our best work to every client, regardless of budget. Do those values show up outside the agency/client relationship?

Northeast Magnet Students at SG

High school students have a lot of highway to travel. Their career decisions aren’t imminent. Jo and Scott have a lot of work to do. We’re in the middle of a very busy first quarter. But they poured their hearts and time into giving their best thinking and sharing their best experiences with these students (pictured here/ Jo is on the left and Scott is far right). They didn’t marginalize the opportunity by making a quick decision to not cut into too much billable time. They didn’t decide they could easily wing it with a bunch of uniformed kids. These kids got two hours of solid content, full-out enthusiasm from Jo and Scott, a sign at the entry and take-home promotional items from a printer because Jo stopped and asked for them on her way in to work.

Watching two art directors and six kids, everyone here got a value lesson. Here’s what I’ve asked myself: How often do I wing it?

Fight series—entry #1.

Published by Laurie on December 10, 2009 in Leadership. 0 Comments

I’m tired. This is a business, but we live with it like it’s a family member. When our clients feel anxious, we feel anxious. Many of our clients have ridden a rollercoaster of anxiety this year-longer sales cycles, lost sales, no sales. Squeezed margins. Fewer profits. We watch clients swallow down panic. Nearly every business conversation begins or ends with the latest estimation—never a summation—of when things will turn.

In a pep talk this morning Jeffrey reminded me to fight. Our clients are fighting hard for their businesses. We are required, as their partners, to fight hard—now harder—for them. Their trust in us mandates that we be 1) better students of the environment to bring them the best thinking, 2) quicker to cut through the clutter to distinguish them in the minds of their consumers and 3) smarter about what initiatives to keep, toss or place on hold.

I love a good fight, but I can’t fight for myself or anyone else without passion. Today, I had to stop to remember what I’m really passionate about. It’s potential. I love finding and championing the best in those I love and the clients I serve.

It’s funny, the track the mind takes when someone admonishes you. Mine went to a Keith Emerson (Emerson Lake & Palmer) piano solo. It came up on Jeffrey’s ipod several weeks ago as we headed to a K-State football game. It’s intense. When I asked Jeffrey about it he said that Emerson pushed his genius so hard that he ended up with severe nerve damage in his hands and wrists. He was passionate about playing the keyboards to a high standard.

Entry #1—passion. Do you remember yours?

There’s something terribly wrong with the heavenly bed.

Published by Laurie on September 21, 2007 in Branding. 0 Comments

We just returned from delivering our daughter to a college in South Carolina and celebrating our son’s 16th birthday at TPC Sawgrass in Jacksonville. Tasked with booking hotels for the eight nights we were away I prescribed a nice balance of mid-priced hotels with a few affordable luxury nights to prevent the travel blahs. I was especially anticipating our return to a well-known hotel flag for its heavenly bed, a sleep experience that’s built on multiple layers of mattress, bedding and pillow bliss. At 11 p.m. on our first luxe night, I called to beg the night manager to strip our bed. An unheavenly odor permeated the sheets, making sleep impossible. The next day, we were moved to another room; regrettably, the not-so-sweet scent followed us across the hall. A self-professed cleanaholic with a sharp nose, I recognized the problem. It gets really warm inside a heavenly bed, with its thick duvet and many layers of upscale linens. The duvet traps perspiration. Follow that line and you begin to conclude that hotels can’t cost effectively launder a duvet on a daily basis as it does sheets and pillow linens.

The heavenly bed points to an important discipline for strategic marketers, brand managers and CEOs: calculating what can go wrong. It’s a marvelous thing to be a person of vision, even better to see the line to the finish. But after the first flush of a new vision passes, it’s time to start the homework—to count the costs, understand the risks, study the competitive environment, jog around the whole vision with a few experts to look for both opportunities and pitfalls, and then, most important, slow to walk a mile in the brand consumer’s shoes. What is the consumer experience? What will the consumer say is great about this new vision of product or service brilliance? What will diminish his experience or worse, cause his confidence in my company to falter?

Several weeks before our not-so-heavenly bed experience, I booked two more room nights at this same hotel for an end-October visit back to South Carolina. It really is a beautiful hotel, but now I’m torn: cancel the reservation or travel with a bottle of Febreeze.

Curiously enough, this particular “pea” in my sleep experience was hinted at as early as 1749. I found this on Wikipedia when I Googled “duvet”:

“In Westphalia, an English travel-writer observed with surprise in 1749,
“There is one thing very particular to them, that they do not cover themselves with bed-cloaths, but lay one feather-bed over, and another under. This is comfortable enough in winter, but how they can bear their feather-beds over them in summer, as is generally practised, I cannot conceive.” —Thomas Nugent, The Grand Tour 1749, vol II. p66 [1]

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